! ! The Lake Of Metaphor

and perhaps I came to poetry too late to dive, a slimmish youth, innocent as youth was or is into the rich waters of the lake of metaphor fed distantly by mountain springs, welcoming in its wateriness, chilling too like a demand for respect, welcoming and chilling as a life; a few strokes and already the green bank and pile of crumpled clothes discarded quickly distant, and here in the middle of the lake, the sky has opened out as if it were some rival to a mountain-top and the hands press against the resistances of language, the palms flat as between praise and surrender, cleaving a passage to the depth and then the shore of metaphor; and emerging, the sunlight catching the sparkling water droplets, the skin shivering but invigorated, the mind full of life like a poem rich in metaphor. Older now, waiting as in the paintings of Saint Jerome at his desk walled in by books, pen poised, eyes uplifted, spirit, rich, yet mind not full, but waiting for the grace of metaphor like the brushing of a white dove's wing